BEST TOP 10 NETBOOK

Asus N10

Making the number-two spot its own is the luxury crotchtop to end all luxury crotchtops, the Asus N10. This beauty will set your geek pulse racing with its stunning design and clever features you simply won’t find on other netbooks.

Design and usability

The N10 is probably the largest netbook in this countdown, but don’t let that put you off — its 276 by 37 by 195mm, 1.4kg chassis is still very portable. If anything, the larger chassis works in the N10’s favour, as it can incorporate a large, comfortable keyboard, which facilitates fast, no-look typing. The 10-inch display is glossy, so it’s hard to see if used outdoors, and multi-touch mouse gestures are absent from the trackpad, but on the whole, but the N10 is easy to get on with.

Connectivity

Despite being pretty large, the N10 lacks an integrated optical drive. Instead, Asus bundles an external DVD rewriter that connects to one of the machine’s three USB ports. Built into the chassis, you’ll find an ExpressCard/34 slot for connecting a third-party 3G modem, VGA and HDMI outputs for connecting to a big-screen TV, a fingerprint reader for logging in without a password, a webcam and face-recognition software, and a digital S/PDIF audio connector for hooking it up to your home-cinema system.

Performance and battery life

The N10 uses the same core components as you’ll find in most netbooks, but has a real ace up its sleeve — switchable graphics. A switch on the left side of the chassis lets you choose between the default Intel integrated graphics solution you get on just about every netbook, or the far more powerful Nvidia GeForce 9200M chip, which allows 3D gaming and improved video processing. Battery life with the discrete card enabled was a mere 2 hours 48 minutes, but with the integrated solution, it lasted a more respectable 3 hours 20 minutes.

Should I buy one?

The N10 is the most powerful and well-equipped netbook on the market today. It’s portable enough to compete with its smallest competitors, yet powerful enough to beat larger ultraportable laptops at their own game. Ignore it at your peril.

Places to buy: AMAZON.COM

By Cnet.co.uk